


The Circle Is Not Round

by Miss_M



Category: A Song of Ice and Fire - George R. R. Martin
Genre: 5+1 Things, Canon Compliant, Choices, Consequences, Decisions, Drabble Sequence, F/M, Gen
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2013-09-23
Updated: 2013-10-03
Packaged: 2017-12-27 10:17:45
Rating: Teen And Up Audiences
Warnings: Creator Chose Not To Use Archive Warnings
Chapters: 17
Words: 1,700
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/977591
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/Miss_M/pseuds/Miss_M
Summary: <blockquote class="userstuff">
              <p>Five decisions which altered the course of the War of the Five Kings so far, followed by five decisions each, which altered Brienne of Tarth and Jaime Lannister’s lives. When are fateful choices made? How does individual choice influence events?</p>
            </blockquote>





	1. Prologue: The Circle Is Not Round

**Author's Note:**

> My take on the 5+1 fic. With a twist. Here be: 3 times 5 chapters, with 1 prologue and 1 epilogue (of sorts), all exactly 100 words long (drabble-length). I will post one chapter a day for the first five chapters, then two a day for Jaime/Brienne, and finally the epilogue.
> 
> The title is from the beautiful Macedonian film _Before the Rain_ ( _Pred dozhdot_ ), which has some interesting things to say about individual choice, blind chance, violence, and whether time cycles back on itself. Canon-compliant, spoilers through ADWD. I own nothing.

Some events happen naturally. Avalanches begin with a pebble. Seasons turn. Sun and moon dance around each other like shy lovers. 

Men and women make choices. Decisions. Whether in the face of insurmountable odds, or when their course appears most obvious and narrow. 

Sometimes it seems that everything which was, is, and will be again. Finite time biting its own tail. Always another war, another moment of bleeding. Honor, respect, love rendered pointless.

Some decisions change history. Others pass unremarked, even by those who decide. 

The difference can be as thin as a thread. The world hangs by that thread.


	2. War: Ability

Maesters and their bored pupils will ponder the question: when did the War of the Five Kings begin? What spark of inspiration, moment of distraction, long-term cause launched the pebble which started that avalanche?

It begins with the matter of the Baratheon succession, of course. Kings and their parentage are a political issue, can be manipulated accordingly. 

It begins with a moment’s ill decision. A child crippled but alive. A man at his lowest. A woman who has a ways to go yet. 

It begins when Bran Stark decides it is a good day to climb that tower. A challenge.


	3. War: Honor

When Eddard Stark orders the three men held in the black cells sent to the Wall, he is discharging a debt of honor.

He never thinks, he cannot know, that he is thereby saving (or destroying) his daughter. Setting her on the path to transformation. 

Or breaking a man he despises. Or condemning a woman he has never heard of to terrible suffering.

He might think the Kingslayer deserves it. His conscience would burn to hear the Maid of Tarth’s tale. 

Eddard Stark’s honor is his shield. There is no room for change in his rock-solid heart. Others can change.


	4. War: Family

King Joffrey sits on the Iron Throne, armored in his father’s name, cushioned by his true father’s name. 

The Baratheon name crowns him, but Lannister might keeps the crown on his head. Whispers of just how much of a Lannister he really is dog his living footsteps. 

They will tell you only the family name endures. 

The war does not end.

One true Baratheon slays the other, yet the war does not end. Nobody wants the surviving Baratheon as king, and the war continues. 

Wars have a way of starting with a trifle, and ending with nothing but trifles left.


	5. War: Annihilation

The King Who Lost the North. 

When does he lose it?

When he marries – for honor, for shame, for love. He is not alone in being a young man whose first idea of love charts his whole life. (Though his enemy, Jaime Lannister would understand.) 

When his bride replaces half his army and allies. A warm embrace makes paltry armor. 

When he emulates his father, trusts where he should not, ceases to be a son and tries to be a king. 

Robb Stark lost the North already, met Winter all alone. Yet Tywin Lannister does not take any chances. Done.


	6. War: Precedent

How far back do we follow the roots of this war? Like hunting cats, it is a twisty business, full of dead ends and tenuous leaps. 

One cause, at least, is clear. It happens in the light of day, in a room made for fire and blood, full of their echoes. 

One man kills another. Earns himself a name he will carry as armor, as a begging bowl. Opens the door to terrifying possibilities. 

Aerys Targaryen, beloved of the gods, bleeds like everyone else, does not burn. 

If a king can be killed, what hope is there for the rest?

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> Next up: five times two drabbles which focus on Jaime, Brienne, and their choices! :-)


	7. Brienne: Beginning

The Stranger seems to love her. He is never far from her side. 

Her mother. Her sisters. Her brother. There will be others. 

Brienne knows she is different, does not understand it is the closeness of death. It cloaks her, brushing others aside, yet keeping her safe. 

Brienne does not remember her mother, misses her all the same. (There will be another she barely knows before she misses him, her thoughts latch onto him.) 

She remembers Galladon, knows it is his death that changes everything for her. Makes her a son as well as a daughter. Makes her a knight.


	8. Jaime: Beginning

He knows he is different. He is a Lannister, after all. From toddlerhood, he knows he will be the realm’s greatest knight. The stuff of songs and sighs. 

His mother’s death buys his brother’s life. Jaime understands the tradeoff, does not resent his little brother. Knows he misses her, will always miss her. 

What really changes his life is his father. Who never speaks Joanna’s name. Never smiles. (Jaime can vaguely remember him smiling, before.) Goes to a faraway city, leaves Jaime alone with his sister and brother. 

Jaime loves them both. Cloaks himself in their love, proof against death.


	9. Brienne: Identity

She knows she is a jape to them. A woman who would be a knight, a member of the Rainbow Guard. Stupid, ugly girl in love with a beautiful king too kind, too soft to send her home. 

When Renly and Stannis call their banners, it does not feel like a choice. She chose years before.

She hates to disappoint her father. That is what she tells herself. She would rather hide in her room and feign a tummy ache. Septa Roelle won’t believe it, but it would be easier. 

Brienne grits her teeth and enters the hall. She dances.


	10. Jaime: Identity

His father’s fury is cold as ice. Yet Tywin is helpless against the ice-white cloak.

Jaime cannot say when he chose. 

At Harrenhal, buoyed by glory and a king’s flattery? In a room on Eel Alley, all his feverish dreams made flesh? Did mere words suffice: the Rock or Cersei? Such an easy choice.

It will not occur to him until years later to wonder how he knew it was love. He was young and whole, and she had been there since his first breath. The first person in his world. 

Is it love, if you never know anyone else?


	11. Brienne: Name

Brienne will never believe pledging her sword to Lady Catelyn was the wrong choice. Even if it kills her. A kinder, more honorable lady never lived. Brienne is unworthy. 

The choice is made for her, the only way to continue with any shred of honor. 

How else does she explain listening to Catelyn in Renly’s tent? They fled, though Brienne would gladly have died. 

It does not seem like a choice. She is warm with his blood and last breath. She does not act or choose or think. Merely follows Lady Stark into the night. Cries of foul murder follow.


	12. Jaime: Name

He knows he is changing his life (changing history) when he kills Aerys. Does not care. It is all one choice. One choice is no choice. 

Jaime’s mistake is not seeking out one of the princes to put on the throne, little Targaryen feet slick from walking through Aerys’ pooled blood. 

Kingslayer, not Kingmaker. 

He sits there himself with no intention of staking a claim, let the pieces fall where they will. He is not ambitious. His pride is worth more than what others call honor. 

The weight of Ned Stark’s gaze lets him know just how wrong he is.


	13. Brienne: You

She can hurt him, she knows. Ser Jaime is weak, in chains, out of practice. He is still the best swordsman Brienne has ever fought, but even so. 

She can kill him. She decides she will not. 

Not because of her oath to Lady Catelyn. Not because of her tender heart. 

Because she has no desire to build her name by stabbing or drowning the Kingslayer while he is not his best self. 

She remembers this not much later, a piece of himself rotting between them, the Bloody Mummers’ laughter clogging her ears. 

Mercy or pride? She keeps him alive.


	14. Jaime: You

Impulsive. That is the word. Acts without thinking. Runs on emotion, dreams, idle fancies. Not a serious man. Not a man whose battle plans are worth much. 

That is what he thinks in his cell in Riverrun. His father would say, if only you listened and obeyed. 

Jaime did not listen or obey that day in the throne room, not that Tywin ever thanked him. He seems to have lost the knack for killing kings, anyway. 

(Not just kings. With oar in hand, with open road before him and Harrenhal behind, he will find the wench is worth keeping alive.)


	15. Brienne: Chrysalis

Brienne needs no lessons in ugliness. How it makes you bleed inside. Outside as well. 

She does not know why her king died for his brother’s ruthlessness. Why a kind lady like Catelyn Stark should lose all her children. Why Jaime should suffer as he did, all for a slobbery fiend’s amusement. 

She would dearly love to know why this. Her cheek a ravaged ruin, her face a coiled knot of pain. Which of her choices brought her to this? 

Brienne feels eaten away, not transformed. 

She watches the Lannister camp at Pennytree, and prays she need not choose again.


	16. Jaime: Chrysalis

Every mirror and pond tells him the plain truth. An old, bearded man with one hand. Somebody he barely recognizes. 

A Lannister still, for what that’s worth. He cannot shuck his old skin completely. 

He does not burn up in fever dreams at Harrenhal. Or in the brazier where Peck throws Cersei’s letter. Too early, too late. 

Jaime leaves his old self in the sept, a smear of blood on the altar. Emerges, separate and alone. Gives himself away in a sword, places himself in Brienne’s hands, safe as can be. Rides into Winter. A stranger. 

A simple choice, really.


	17. Epilogue/Prologue: Time Never Ends

Neither thinks much of the other.

He is drunk, thinks himself beyond caring. He just wants out. Wants. So he swears an oath on his honor and the gods. All three of which would fit into that bucket the lady kicks over.

She swore to obey her lady unto death. Even unto escorting him across the world, suffering his taunts. She would prefer a pitched battle, another betrothal. 

What their eyes see and sneer at is of little account. In that moment, they begin to make choices by which they stand or fall. Decisions by which they will both live.

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> Chapter title is from _Before the Rain_ ( _Pred dozhdot_ ).


End file.
